In with the New
by Khatt
Summary: Immediately post-Journey's End. The Doctor and Rose pick up where they left off. Angst-free, in-character fluff ensues. (Revised/rewritten as of 12/17/12.)
1. Arrival

It took them twenty minutes to find phone service after the TARDIS flashed and faded into nothingness, the _whrrrr whrrrr_ of her engines a final farewell. While Jackie gave their coordinates to Pete's zeppelin pilot using her cell, Rose leaned against the Doctor's shoulder and watched him examine the fist-sized lump that would eventually grow into a _new _TARDIS. "Weird feeling homesick for that bit of rock," she said, prompting him into conversation.

"Well," the Doctor reached into his jacket pocket for his reading glasses, placed them on his nose, and squinted at the knotted root-shaped bit. "Looks like a piece from the control panel." He twisted the coral as he held it out into the sunlight. "Should be ready in, say, two thousand years? Two-twenty?" He brought the coral back to eye level and took a sniff. "No, no, sooner than that. I'd say… eighteen hundred." He gave it a lick. "Bleh…" he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, wrinkling his nose as he did so. "Eighteen hundred twenty-three."

Rose laughed. She felt a twinge of regret knowing she was past the days of travelling the stars, but the Doctor's actions were so very _him _that she was filled with relief rather than sadness. Anything could be an adventure so long as they were together. And now they might not have to run so much.

"What do we do for the next two thousand years, then, Doctor?" Rose asked, linking her arm with his and looking up at him. There was no hesitation in her use of his name.

"We wait." The Doctor handed her the coral and reached into his blue suit jacket's interior pocket to pull out his sonic screwdriver. "Always carry a spare," he clicked his tongue at her as he winked. "Aaand…" he lengthened the word as he worked over the coral, "We speed up the growth by a factor of 59, as Miss Noble was so polite to suggest. Thirty years or so and we're back in business." He waved the screwdriver, blue tip glowing, over the piece she held in a complex, interlocking circular pattern before looking up at Rose.

Her heart leapt, and she grinned. "Thirty years, that's not so bad."

"No it's not, is it!" the Doctors voice went a bit squeaky in his excitement.

"What do I do with this, then?" Rose asked, holding up the TARDIS coral and looking into his so-very-brown eyes.

"You plant it. TARDIS has to be grown. We used to have fields, you know, back home."

"You planted the TARDIS." It was a statement of disbelief, not a question.

"Underwater, more often than not. Only way to go, unless you know a carpenter that specializes in dimensional transcendentalism?" He raised an eyebrow.

Rose laughed again. "Mum's probably got one on speed dial, all the clothes she keeps in her closet now and everything." They both looked over at Jackie, who was talking animatedly on the phone. Abruptly, she brought the phone down from her ear and smacked it a several times with her free hand.

"Bad service, I think." The Doctor commented. "Must be this rock outcropping, lots of iron deposits maybe, odd shape," he jogged over to the wall of rock and stopped short as he scanned the face. "Oh, hello!" His face broke into a smile as he stuck his hand through the cliff.

_Through _the cliff.

"Would you look at that!" He grinned wider now, looking up and reached again for his sonic screwdriver. After a few short vertical swings, the cliff turned to static. A handful of seconds later, it flashed back to its original shape, then disappeared completely. "Semi-permeable force field, looks like, with the _tiniest _perception filter on it. No wonder the phone's not working."

Rose wrapped her arms around herself. It was chilly in Norway, even in July. She stepped closer to the Doctor, as much out of the comfort of his presence as her desire for a bit of extra body heat. "Who did this?" she asked in a whisper. She was looking at the sky when everything went black.

"Rose. Rose!" The Doctor's tone was immediately serious. She reached out blindly, and grabbed at his hand, clasping their fingers together tightly as they assessed the situation.

"'S ok, I'm alright." She craned her neck, twisting around to pick up any sound, but all she could hear was the continuing crash of waves and her mother yelling into the phone. A brief flicker, then a steady glow from the sonic screwdriver illuminated the Doctor's face. He beamed down at her; instead of looking worried, he was bouncing with glee.

"We're inside a cliff! Well, not a real cliff. We're right in the middle of the projected image. The light reflects off it, so none of it can get inside. What do you think, perfect place to plant a TARDIS?" He released her hand and started scuffing at the damp sand with the toe of his trainer.

"Seriously, though, who did this?" Rose asked again, looking around in the faint blue light.

"I think I did. Other me, I mean, before taking off." He stilled and sighed before putting his in his pockets. The silence lengthened.

"Rose," he said hesitantly, gazing down at the texture of the sand. He didn't make eye contact; not because he was uncomfortable, but because he didn't want Rose to feel so. "If you're upset, or uncomfortable, or dissatisfied with me, I understand. Please, don't feel like you've been cornered into any commitment just because we were both…" He glanced up and trailed off at the expression on Rose's face.

She was staring at him like he'd just dribbled on his shirt.

After the TARDIS's departure, Rose had wanted to believe that this man was an inferior copy of the one she loved. Not the Doctor. Not _her_ Doctor. Sure, there were subtle differences between this human version and the other one who had left her, _twice_, on this same beach. But after hearing those three long-awaited whispered words, Rose had pushed away those doubtful notions. Now, hearing him as protective of her as ever, even at the cost of his own happiness, she banished the thought completely. He wasn't just like the Doctor. He _was_the Doctor. His single heart didn't diminish his obvious affection for her, the thrill of their reunion, or the awe at the fact that they could truly have a life together. And this one had actually said the words.

These thoughts chased each other around in her head, but what came out of her mouth was, "Do Time Lords think with their hearts or something?"

The Doctor looked taken aback. "What?"

"Well, you've lost a heart and now you've gone all stupid!" Rose gestured at him, a frustrated movement. She looked almost angry. He looked almost scared.

He looked even more confused. "What?" He asked again.

"Were we even on the same beach?" Rose asked quietly.

"What?"

"Seriously, it was _half an hour _ago. You said you love me."

"Oh, Rose," he breathed softly. His face was a flow of colliding emotions. Love, loss, hope, fear and an honesty so genuine it looked as if it caused him physical pain. All of these expressions blended rapidly into each other as he looked into her eyes. "I do. Rose," He reached up to tuck her hair behind her left ear in a tender, intimate gesture. "You know I do. Always did, actually."

She broke then. Wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face into the hollow of his shoulder. He felt tears on his neck and pulled her tighter into his arms, breathing in her scent and nuzzling her hair as he did so.

"I waited! I _worked_ years and _years_ to find you. Find him? You both?" She shook her head as if to clear it, then pulled back and looked into his eyes again. "You know what I mean. Then I did, I _finally _find you, and what happens? Two copies. One stays with me, and the other runs off to another universe. Forever. Who d'you think I'd choose?"

This thought had obviously not occurred to the Doctor.

Rose continued, "You could have gone with them, you know. Three Doctors in the TARDIS, seeing the worlds, saving planets and all that."

He hadn't considered this, either. "Why would I want to leave," he asked her, a bewildered expression on his face, "When I could stay with you?"

"Exactly. That's... that's it, exactly." She smiled through her tears and gave a little laugh. "You know, you can say it again. I mean," She bit her bottom lip in an expression that was both teasing and hopeful. "If you want."

How many times? How often had he wanted to confess, to _convince_ Rose that he loved her? _Only _her? He'd almost confessed front of Sarah Jane Smith, of all people. Again, on Krop Tor, even when he was sure he was about to fall to his death, he couldn't get the words out, not even as a final message. And hadn't his ninth incarnation decided on a most intimate transfer process to absorb the time vortex energy from her? A touch of the hand would have sufficed.

But now, with this human body, he could express what his reserved Gallifreyan physiology hadn't allowed. No difference in species. No going on without her after the years had taken their toll. Just the Doctor and Rose Tyler. In the TARDIS. Eventually. As it should be.

The Doctor managed to take a step closer to her, though he could already feel her breath on his cheek. He spoke softly, but firmly.

"Rose Tyler." He took her face in his hands, gently brushing away what was left of her tears. His fingertips felt the increase in heart rate, and he heard her breath catch. "I have seen a thousand suns born and thousands more die. I've seen empires rise and fall, whole systems come to light and become shrouded in darkness. I've fought wars and brought peace. I've roamed more galaxies than most are aware even exist. But _you_, Rose Tyler." He closed what little distance was left between them. Placing his forehead on hers, he finished: "You are the center of my universe.

"I love you, Rose. Make no mistake. Don't ever think for a _second _that isn't true."

Rose stared up at him, stunned. Everything she'd ever wanted was here in front of her. Two years of pain and grief, after having him ripped away, the long hours and sleepless nights spent on the dimension cannon, the echoing loneliness that kept her awake long after the sun went down, her mother's continuing concern that Rose would never fully recover from her loss.

Now she knew – for this moment, now, it had all been worth it. Every second. The Doctor's face was suddenly serious as he looked into her eyes. "Stay with me."

"How d'you mean, 'stay'?"

He took her hands in both of his. "Rose Tyler," he said again. (What _was_ it about the way he said those words, as though he liked the flavour? Rose briefly wondered if, given a Time Lord's enhanced senses, he actually _could_taste them.) "I would be the happiest man in all the worlds if you never left my side again. Please. Stay with me."

"Yeah, 'course I will." Her response was immediate. This was a decision she had come to long ago. "'Forever', remember?" She heard him sigh with relief. "I won't leave you again, Doctor. Not ever."

At this, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. His precious Rose. They stood there for a few moments, sharing warmth and each daydreaming about a future that was now possible. Rose could feel the double cadence of their heartbeats, even through their bundled clothes. The Doctor's soft breathing ruffled the hair near her right ear in a soothing rhythm. After two years of forced absence, this intimate closeness was more than Rose had been prepared for.

"Doctor…" was all she could manage before her lips found his.

Earlier, the Doctor had held himself in check for as long as possible because his other self had been present. He'd _tried_to keep his kiss with Rose first kiss chaste, but had managed only a few seconds before throwing his arms about her and nearly bruising his lips in the process. This time he had no reason to hold back.

If Rose thought their previous kiss upon arrival at Bad Wolf Bay had been passionate, she was completely unprepared for this one.

Could he be holding her any more tightly? Probably not, but she hoped he would try anyway. Rose wound her fingers through what she could reach of his hair (even on tiptoe, he was much taller than she). Though her grip was strong, he didn't seem to mind. Seemed to enjoy it, actually. She heard a soft sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan when she traced the outline of his top lip with the tip of her tongue. Rose filed that away for future reference. Given the Doctor's obvious oral fixation, there were a few things she was now keen to try.

She lost all concentration when he'd started to nibble on her lower lip, taking it gently between his teeth and using his tongue to tease. Things like "standing up" and "keeping balance" completely fled her mind, and she only realized her knees had given way when the Doctor caught her. They still did not break the kiss, and Rose had just begun to ease her hands inside the Doctor's coat when–

"Oi, where've you two run off to?" Jackie's voice rang out from the outside of the cliff projection.

"Ah," Rose tried to remember how to form words as she brought a hand up to smooth her hair. The Doctor's fingers had been entangled in what was left of her hastily put-up ponytail, and he now held her around the waist, both of his strong hands on her lower back. "Maybe, ah. Maybe we can, er, finish this later?"

The Doctor's quirked eyebrow and sly grin both answered her request and posed several new ones.

"Rose? Doctor?"

"We're in the cliff, Mum!"

"The bloody hell do you mean 'in the cliff'? I turn 'round for five minutes and you disappear into EEEEEEEEEK!"

Rose and the Doctor had stepped out of the projection, hand in hand, startling Jackie into dropping her phone in the sand.

"What'd you go and do that for? Now it's all wet, we'll never get it to work. It's a hike to the nearest call station, believe you me. Who knows when we'll get somewhere with service. And what on earth happened to your hair?"


	2. Lines

After super-boosting Jackie's mobile phone with the sonic screwdriver and arranging their transportation back to London from Dårlig Ulv-Stranden (in perfect Norwegian, no less, to a very bemused pilot), the Doctor returned to the mountainous cliff face and stepped through the thin barrier. Rose procured the small torch her mother kept in her coat pocket in preparation for the unexpected perils of dimension hopping, then followed the Doctor. Jackie remained outside the projection; partially to watch for the incoming zeppelin, mostly to give her daughter and the Doctor some well-earned privacy.

Rose stepped through the rock, a tingling feeling sliding across her skin as she did so, and walked towards the Doctor. She marveled at the complexity of the texture in the walls—a perfect copy of the stone and grass tufts on the other side. Even a gull's nest was mirrored there. The projection seemed to be an extension of an existing sea cliff; the crag was about forty feet on each side, nearly the same height, and was above the tide line, though just barely. The sand was damp under her feet as she made her way further in, and she was beginning to feel the moisture seep into her socks from the fabric on the sides of her trainers.

Once her eyes had adjusted to the faint torchlight, Rose saw that the Doctor was crouched in the center of the structure next to a small, dry dune that held the coral upright, pulling his fingers through the sand in long, wavy lines. He was wearing his glasses again, and they were lightly specked with droplets of sea spray. The Doctor occasionally muttered to himself and sketched what looked suspiciously like numbers in the air in front of him with his sonic screwdriver. Rose knelt beside him as he crouched in the sand and looked down at the half-buried piece of the TARDIS; it was soaking up the moisture from the surrounding beach in a widening circle, and she briefly wondered if her socks would dry out, providing she stood close enough. Failing that, her hyper-prepared mother would probably have an extra pair in that coat of hers to go along with the torch.

The Doctor was tapping his chin with his screwdriver now. He reached the point in his calculations where the thrill of discovery lit up his face, and when he saw Rose, he launched into speech immediately, gaining speed and volume, gesturing with his hands as he maintained his stream-of-consciousness explanation. "If this projection was set up like I'd set it up," he waved around at the surrounding darkness, "Which it is, because I did, because I'm me, I'd've modified the dimensional stabilizer to a fold-back harmonic of 36.3 _and_ shatterfried the plasmic shell of the projection field, _then_," he placed his hands on Rose's shoulders, "I'd leave it there for me to find so I'd do the same for the TARDIS. It _compounds_, Rose! Do you know what this means!?"

"No" and a slight shake of the head were all she could manage with a straight face. He'd lost her near the beginning when his pronouns had gone wonky. Taking in his currently disheveled appearance, the discovery-wild look in his eyes, and his overwhelming propensity to run at the mouth, Rose, rather than trying to unravel the ancient mysteries of TARDIS-gardening, was instead trying not to laugh. Her lips were pursed in a determined (yet unconvincing) non-smile, but her eyes were dancing.

"Rose, you're laughing at me, that's not very nice."

"'Course I'm not. Just not too good at maths, that's all."

"It _means_," the Doctor went on, slower this time, "that the TARDIS coral can be modified to grow fifty-nine times faster than normal."

"Yeah, thirty years, you said." Well within her lifetime, Rose realized. Domestics couldn't be too bad for that long.

"It _also_means," the Doctor continued, beginning to smile "that I can do the same thing to the cliff projection."

"So it'd be a hundred and… eight times faster?" she guessed. Fifteen years—even better.

"Very close, a hundred and eighteen." And now he really was beaming. "But no, that's what I thought at first. Look at this." He reached down to a bit of damp sand nearby and wrote out the words 'Bad Wolf" with one of his long fingers. Almost immediately, the words began to crumble and sink back into a smooth, dry sandy mound. "It's commutative, not associative — rather, it doesn't divide the time by fifty-nine twice. It divides the time by fifty-nine, _twice_."

"You've lost me again."

"Alright, how about this: if I'd planted the TARDIS with Donna's modifications, it would grow about sixty times faster than normal. Take about three decades to finish."

Rose nodded, "Guess we'll have to travel Earth for a while. You gonna be alright, stuck on one planet for that long?"

"With you Rose, anywhere is an adventure," he reassured her. "But here's the thing," he pointed to the apparently solid rock above. "If I do the same modifications to the cliff projection, which isn't technically a projection, by the way, it'll divide _that_time by fifty-nine as well."

Maths or no maths, this was good news. Domestics be damned. "Which is?"

A small shrug from the Doctor. "Six months?"

"Six months?" A disbelieving smile crept its way onto Rose's face. "We'll have a TARDIS in six months?"

The Doctor smiled back at her. "Yeah," he said, in a relieved exhale. They grinned at each other like idiots as a handful of seconds ticked past. Rose considered standing to jump in her joy, but restrained herself. (Even now, she hated to be reminded of their hop-for-your-life escapade.) She settled instead for throwing her arms about the Doctor's neck, losing their already precarious balance as they were both still crouched in the sand, and landing collapsed on his chest. Both were laughing in sheer delight. Rose folded her hands on the Doctor's chest and propped her chin on them as one of his arms laced around her, touching her shoulder, stroking an ear, still reveling in the opportunity for physical contact after so long apart.

"So, Doctor," she said, still beaming, tongue between her teeth, "what do you want to do for the next six months?"

"Well, I'll tell you what I'd like to do." He brought his other hand behind his head and leaned up a bit to look at Rose. "I'd like to go shopping for a big brown coat." He gave an affirming nod. "Yep, a big brown coat with lots of pockets. I miss my big brown coat." His small pout for the loss of his favorite accessory made Rose giggle even harder. It had been, what — less than a day since he'd worn it?

"That's what you're going to do for six months, is it? Trench coat shopping?"

"Well," he shrugged again, at least as much as he could while lying in the sand, "there's a few other things I'd like to take care of. Somewhere to live, something to eat, that sort of thing. And then, Rose Tyler," he said in a matter-of-fact voice, "I think I'd like to marry you."


	3. Travel

"Yeah?" Rose responded to the Doctor's impromptu proposal, surprising herself by being able to speak through her smile

"Yeah," the Doctor replied softly, with a slight catch in his voice. He was here, on a beach with Rose Tyler. A Rose Tyler that had pledged to stay with him. _His _Rose. A Rose that had crossed universes to find him, knowing full well it was impossible but trying anyway and succeeding. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back onto the sand. What an amazing, marvelous creature she was. After centuries of passing it off as cliché, he now understood the concept of a 'happily ever after'.

Taking a deep breath to gather his thoughts, he gently dislodged Rose, stood, and helped her to her feet. Offering his arm to her, he said, "Shall we go find your mother, Miss Tyler? I'd hate to rob her of the knowledge of your impending nuptials."

Rose snorted as she took his arm, linking her hands at the crook of his elbow. "Sure. Since when am I 'Miss Tyler'?" she asked him, humor evident in her tone.

"Since I won't be able to call you that for much longer, eh?" he responded, flashing her a smile, winking, and nudging her with his elbow as they took one last survey of the coral-bearing dune. "We should downgrade her phone first, or she may call half the world before dinner. Likes to gossip, your mum, in case you hadn't noticed. Well, then. Allons-y, Miss Tyler." They turned from the TARDIS's plot, and made their way once again through the projection's shielding, heading towards the sound of approaching zeppelin engines.

* * *

They were on their way to London, which gave them each time to shower and have a meal after the exhausting events of the previous day. The Doctor had been ushered by a midshipman-turned-manservant into a washroom with instructions to leave his garments outside the door. Though he was not thrilled with the prospect, he complied; the room was amply supplied with towels in any case, should a clothing emergency arise. He kicked his clothing through a small crack in the door, then turned on the shower and stepped into the water flow without a second thought. Immediately, he yelped and scrambled back into the far wall, putting as much distance between himself and that horrid cascade as possible.

Since _when_ was water so _cold_?

"Are you all right in there, sir?" the midshipman's voice carried through the door.

"Ye–," the Doctor started to answer in a barely audible squeak. He cleared his throat for another attempt, unlocking his white knuckles from the towel-rod he'd clung to for support. "Yes, I'm fine." The Doctor grabbed a towel and vigorously dried himself, wanting to preserve his body heat until his suit was dusted free of sand and returned. "Hold on, that's it! Body heat!" He felt about in a side drawer under the sink for a few moments before finding makeup of some sort (_must be Jackie's bathroom_, he thought, _Rose would never wear this horrid shade of pink_), and started sketching figures on the mirror.

"Sir?"

The Doctor absentmindedly gave a dismissive wave, invisible on the other side of the door. "Not you, you go do… midshipman-y things." He briefly considered asking for his screwdriver out of his coat pocket, but decided to tackle this problem hands-free. It should be a good workout for the human half of his brain.

Five minutes later, the Doctor had an ideal setting calculated, given the average differential between Time Lord and human body temperature and the supposed inclination of humans towards hot showers. As he did not know their exact altitude, he had been unable to factor that into his equation, which gave him a half-degree margin of error on either side. Well, nothing more could be done. The Doctor set the shower near its maximum setting, and soon steam was pouring out from over the curtain rod, making a miasma of his formula in the mirror. He steeled himself, prepared for the same shocking, muscle-tensing sensation as before, and stepped into the water.

Dear sweet _Rassilon_, that felt good.

The Doctor felt at once an overwhelming urge to sing, or purr, or fall asleep, he couldn't tell. He had been unaware of the aching in his new, overtaxed muscles until this delicious heat melted it away. Eyes half-closed, he turned and let the steady stream of water beat against his shoulders. He arched the muscles in his back, savoring the warmth, then tilted his head back to wet his hair. As he reached for the small tray of toiletries, he cursed. Of all the…

The doctor poked his head out from behind the shower curtain, water running down his fringe into his eyes, which he hastily wiped away. "Midshipman?" he called towards the door.

"Sir?" came the muffled response.

"Find me some shampoo that doesn't smell like pear."

* * *

Once the water started to cool, the Doctor shut off the stream and reached outside the curtain, feeling around for a towel, unwilling to leave the warmth of the shower interior for the chilly air outside. As soon as his body was dry, he reassembled his suit (which was kindly left in a water-proofed bag on the door handle) and made his way to the dining room for tea. He caught sight of the back of Rose's head; she was sitting with her back to the door talking animatedly with her mother. He'd just smiled to himself, noticing she'd saved him a place next to her when Jackie caught sight of him and jumped out of her seat, pointing a finger accusingly in his direction. "And you! I suppose this is your idea, is it?" Her hands were on her hips in a textbook overprotective mother gesture, and her expression was beyond irate. "Waltzing back into our universe, quick as you please, and _shacking up with my daughter_?"

The Doctor froze in the act of drying the back of his hair with a hand-towel and glanced over at Rose, who had turned in her seat to look back at him. She mouthed "sorry" and looked both amused and sincerely apologetic.

"Um–" was all he could say before Jackie started in again, this time directing her ire at Rose.

"He is _not_going to live with you!"

Rose rolled her eyes and dropped her head back onto the seat's headrest in frustration. "'Course he's going to live with me, Mum. Nothing new, anyway, as we were on the TARDIS together for ages." Jackie gave her a stunned look. "What, you think we parked it every night and got separate hotel rooms? We're _adults_, Mum."

"What, adult? You're twenty-two, and hardly that! You think all this Torchwood rubbish has aged you, but you've not been on your own long, and now you're getting engaged to someone a hundred times older than you!"

"Oi!" said the Doctor, his mouth dropping open in indignation. That was going entirely too far. "I'm not even half that!" Jackie ignored him, which was probably for the best.

"And how d'you reckon I'm twenty-two, Mum?" Rose narrowed her eyes. "Hmm? How long did the Doctor and I travel together?"

"Two years! Popping back for Christmas and milk and whenever you needed laundry done. _Forgetting_for twelve months, even." Jackie shot a glare at the Doctor, who put his hands up defensively.

"Yeah," Rose nodded sarcastically, "and how long do you think it takes to spend two years in a time machine? It could've been six months for me." Rose gave a flippant shrug at this weighty information, "Or five years, you wouldn't know."

The Doctor was glancing wide-eyed from one Tyler female to the other. He had a feeling that the result of this argument involved much more than his sleeping arrangements. Furthermore, that he would have no say in it whatsoever, no matter how involved his future was. In an effort to dodge the domestics, he pointed a hand over his shoulder. "I think I'm just going to step outside."

Jackie actually stomped her foot at him. "It's a blimp, you _prat_, you can't just go walking about."

The Doctor winced. Now was not the time to launch into clarification between zeppelins and blimps, especially here in a relatively small space with Jackie in a distinctly non-tea-making mood. So much for leaving until they'd worked it out. He sighed and resigned himself: time to be human. If it was anyone else but Rose he wouldn't bother, but it _was_. Jackie would be family soon; the Doctor realized and cringed reflexively. Now was not the time to avoid familial disputes: he had to be actively involved.

Euch.

He braced himself and thumbed through his mental rolodex of facial expressions, settling on a basic 'pacify the homicidal alien' look and setting it to 'angry maternal figure' which he then directed at Jackie as he took his seat next to Rose.

"Jackie, nothing went on in the TARDIS. Not like what you're thinking," the Doctor said in a soothing voice. He placed his folded hands on the table. Though he would much prefer to have an arm around Rose, now wasn't the time. He made a mental note to make time soon. They had missed far too many moments together.

Rose sniffed and crossed her arms. "Not for lack of trying," she mumbled under her breath, low enough that Jackie didn't hear. The Doctor gave her a confused look. "What, you think I leave my laundry about on accident?" she said in a slightly louder voice.

"I thought maybe you used it for decoration," was his response. It was true; he found some very odd garments in some very odd places. During their time together, there hadn't been a nook or cranny of the TARDIS that didn't have an inappropriate piece of clothing tucked away in it, it seemed, causing inappropriate but oh-so-enticing thoughts for the Time Lord whenever they were discovered. They still cropped up occasionally, either because he'd been neglecting the cleaning or because the TARDIS was missing Rose as strongly as he did, and needed a companion in her mourning.

He remembered one such recent incident in particular. Right before his adventure with the Adipose, the Doctor had gone to see Churchill again and had given an introduction at the Commons. During Churchill's 'We Shall Fight on the Beaches' speech (bugger to write, that), the Doctor had wiped his own forehead with what he thought was a pocket-handkerchief–it was the middle of June, after all. He hadn't discovered until later when he and Donna were climbing back aboard the TARDIS next to her mother's car that it was instead a rather garish yellow polka-dotted pair of women's knickers. He had silently vowed to never speak of the situation again, and hoped that Winston had done the same.

In the beginning, it had taken the majority of his self-control not to mention the garments to Rose and to deposit the offending clothing back in the laundry whenever they revealed themselves. Well… that wasn't entirely true. In the beginning, it had taken the majority of his self-control not to shag Rose whenever she walked into a room. That was, he had been certain, a surefire way to scare her into leaving, so he'd settled for a constant invasion of personal space instead.

Jackie was obviously unconvinced by the Doctor's reassurances. "What's this about laundry, I thought you were telling me nothing was going on!"

"I'm in love with your daughter."

His blatant confession stunned Jackie into silence, for which he was exceedingly grateful. He saw Rose looking at him from the corner of his eye, and he glanced down at his still folded hands once before looking Jackie square in the eyes and telling her what he had previously unable to speak, even to Rose. "I am absolutely, unquestionably, _madly_ in love with your daughter. I never told her before today. I can't imagine life without her. I've _lived _life without her, and I can't..." He shut his eyes against the echoes of heartache from those lonely years. When he opened them again, it was to see Jackie shaking her head slightly in disbelief. "I can't do it again."

Jackie pointed at the two of them in turn. "So you two never…" she let the statement hang in the air.

The Doctor and Rose both shook their heads. "Never," they responded in unison.

"And all this time I thought you'd been shagging like rabbits."

Rose's eyes went wide. "Mum!"

"Oh, come on, Rose, you can't blame me for thinking it, the way you can't keep your hands off each other, him all fancy dressed, you all doe-eyed and talking about his _hair_." Jackie flipped a hand towards them. "Well, go on. Get married. I'll want grandkids before I'm fifty."

"MUM!"

Jackie ignored her. "You're still moving in with her? Now?" she asked the Doctor.

"If she'll have me."

If Jackie had any remaining misgivings, she ignored them for the moment. "Alright, then. Who wants tea?" She rose and put the kettle on, searching the cabinets for cups and saucers.

Rose smirked. "Oh, I'll have you, all right," she murmured in a smoldering tone, giving the Doctor a look that was simultaneously serious and wickedly playful.

The Doctor opened his mouth to retort, but was distracted by the quirk of Rose's lips and how fast his single heart could rush blood to his cheeks. He searched the sum of his knowledge for a proper response, and found himself with no words at all. Was it warm in here all of a sudden? He should have a word with the engineers.

Giving up on formulating a reply, he gave in to his desire for physical contact. He put his left arm about Rose's shoulders and felt her settle in, her head on his chest. He bent slightly and kissed her temple, eliciting a sigh from her as he did so. To call the sound 'contented' would have been an insult. That gentle breath told him more than any actions or words could have expressed. Rose was happy to be with him.

They sat in companionable silence for a handful of minutes while they listened for the kettle to reach a boil, both with their minds going over the events of the past two days.

_Oh, hang on, had it been this jacket_? The Doctor reached his other hand into his pocket. _Yep_. "These are yours, by the way," he whispered to Rose. Grabbing the yellow knickers, he handed them over to Rose, who blushed and tucked them away before her mum could return with the tea.


	4. Home

Rose Tyler was currently curled in the back seat of a Bentley Mulsanne, dozing on the shoulder of the aforementioned Oncoming Storm. When it arrived, Rose immediately gained a new appreciation for the car's bench seat. There'd been occasions of stretching out for a nap or using the extra space to sort paperwork that always seemed to pile up while she was out distorting the fundamentals of reality in search of the Doctor, and out of habit, she had entered the back seat on the passenger side and shut the door. The Doctor had swung open the door on the other side and promptly scooted to the middle, simultaneously buckling his seat belt and working his left arm around her shoulders, squeezing them for a second and planting a kiss on her hair. He'd then wriggled down into the seat to make himself comfortable and let his head fall back on the headrest. Within seconds, his breathing slowed.

Rose gazed at him briefly, marveling at how smoothly their dynamic had shifted and how absolutely right it felt, before curtailing the last bit of distance in between them on the seat and resting her head on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck for a moment before starting to drift in and out of wakefulness.

A year and a half of mentally taxing R&D at Torchwood One followed by six months of physically exhausting dimension travel fighting to return to her Doctor, and all she could manage was to drool on his shirt and struggle to stay awake. The combination of his warmth and the rumble of the car's engine lulled her into a mind-muddling doze. She'd never seen the Doctor drive a car, her sluggish brain informed her. If it was anything like his TARDIS piloting, well… Probably for the best that they had a driver. Though he had driven her around on a motorcycle; that had been a good day. A perfect excuse to sidle up behind him, wrap her arms around him, bring her mouth up oh-so-close to his ear so that he could hear her speak as they zoomed down the street. Then some sort of alien telly had stolen her face, and the Doctor fought to rescue her. Definitely a good day.

Rose hadn't made many concessions to her parents' extravagant lifestyle, moving out of the house as soon as she could support herself, but she had consented to a taxi service. There was always a car when she needed one, never more than a quarter-hour away. Pete Tyler footed her travel bill—he called it 'nineteen years worth of birthday presents.' Rose turned her face toward the Doctor and was about to share this information when she looked up to see him nodding off, wearing an expression she'd seen once before. Where had it been? Oh yes, New Earth. That bit was always a little murky, as she had been mentally compressed by Cassandra-O'Brien-Dot-Delta-Trampoline at the time. After that glorious quick snog in the hospital hallway (which Rose tried to remember quite often), he'd been absolutely flummoxed: drowsy-eyed, tousled hair, mouth partially open, jacket disheveled. Rose grinned into his shoulder, trying not to laugh and wake him. A small snicker still managed to escape, and the Doctor shifted, blinking the sun from his eyes, and reaching his right hand over to take her left before relaxing once again into a light sleep. He looked nearly identical now as he had on New Earth, save for the extra droop in the eyelids.

Rose also realized that she'd never seen him sleep other than as an after-effect of his regeneration, and she speculated in her half-dozing state whether or not he would snore. She smiled to herself, knowing that she now had ample time to discover the answer to this question, as well as any number more. She fell further into that comfortable unconsciousness, her tired brain aware only of the rumble of the engine, the warmth of the Doctor, and the feel of his thumb tracing gentle circles on her ring finger.

* * *

Rose no longer lived with Pete and Jackie. Even with a complete wing of their manor to herself, she never felt as though she had enough room. It came from lengthy travel through the vortex, she supposed; when you spent weeks at a time light years and millennia away from the nearest civilization, you learned to appreciate solitude.

Once she'd established a career at Torchwood (at a significant beginner's salary, as first-hand experience in dealing with alien tech counted far more than A-levels), she found a place of her own on the city's outskirts, surrounded by a small copse of trees. The property wasn't large and the house wasn't too terribly impressive. It was small, two-story, with the bottom floor built partially into the side of a hill. It wasn't shabby or messy, it wasn't flashy or particularly well-kempt. It was nondescript.

Rose thought it absolutely perfect. If she'd learned anything from space travel, it was that outer appearances couldn't be trusted. Assumptions were an easy way to put yourself in danger of running for your life or getting chucked in prison. The TARDIS herself was testament to the folly of snap judgment.

And how Rose missed that glorious machine.

Initially, she'd been so overcome by the loss of the Doctor that she failed to process the homesickness. Once she did, Rose assumed it was the old apartment at the Powell Estate she so anxiously wanted to revisit. In desperation for something familiar, she had gone downstairs to the Engineering labs to see Mickey.

He was working on some audio tech (she steadfastly refused to use the word 'sonic') and the lab was full of assorted noises and sound systems in various states of disassembly. Rose sat on the table next to his workstation and drummed her feet on a support bar underneath her impromptu stool.

"I just don't know what it is," she'd told Mickey as he re-wired a speaker. "It's like I'm lost," Rose tried to explain, "and I can't remember where I live."

"Well, maybe you don't," he replied, his mind on the conversation but his eyes on his work.

"How d'you mean?"

"What I mean is, you didn't live in London, now, did you? Would you stop that banging, you're throwin' off the rhythm." He waved a wire cap at Rose's still tapping feet, and she ceased.

"Is that important?"

"'Course it's important, yeah. Sonic stuff and noise don't really mix, do they?"

"Not the noise, you berk." She smiled to take the sting from her insult. "Where'd I live but London?"

He waved his (completely non-sonic) screwdriver in a vaguely skyward direction, still intent on his project. "All over the place. Space ships, alien planets. Not here on Earth with the rest of us."

"But I didn't _live_those places."

"No, you didn't." He paused, then put down his tools and looked at her. "You lived in a time machine. This make you feel better?" He reached for a nearby toggle switch and flipped it with a flick of his finger. The speaker on the workbench began to hum softly, a pulsating buzz fading in and out of the emanating background noise. Clearly mechanical, but clearly organic.

Rose didn't know whether to laugh or cry. To hug Mickey or punch him. How many times had this hum lulled her to sleep as she traveled through the vortex? She was homesick for her room. Not the old one at the Estate—her room on the TARDIS. Her room with the unmade bed where she'd kicked off the comforter, some traditional alien festival robes draped over a chair, a stack of mascara and lip gloss tubes blocking the bottom bit of her mirror, candy wrappers on her bedside table.

Rose listened to the sound of the TARDIS' engines for nearly a full minute before speaking. "Can you put that on CD or something?" she asked quietly. "Might help me sleep."

Mickey presented a gleaming disc. "Thought as much," he said as he passed it over to Rose. "That's a two hour loop, that is. We're studying the sound, trying to reproduce it and see what type of equipment it's using. Probably help with the dimension thing."

"Yeah, 'cannon', they're calling it," Rose added, twirling her new treasure on her finger. "Not too keen on the name. But if I'm gonna get back, gotta be a bit daredevil, I suppose. Speaking of trouble, I'm late for the Monday-Friday. See you tomorrow for tea at Mum's?"

"Unless I'm here, yeah."

As she took the lift back to the conference room, she toyed with the disc, reflecting the elevator lights with its polished surface. The circles that flashed along the walls gave her another wistful feeling of home.

Rose was distracted during the staff meeting. Her presence was a formality, anyway. Though she'd appealed to be the one to use the cannon, she had no real input into its design or the money involved in making it. Instead, she doodled on the agenda—first, the circular pattern that lined the walls of the TARDIS, then her favorite chair from the library. She added tiny details in the corners of the paper like the fluted finials on the shower rod and the knob on the drawer of her bedside table. Little things she'd never paid much attention to that now begged to be remembered.

That evening, she'd stopped by a few shops. The next evening, she stopped by a few more. She ranged further and further, searching for bits of home in person, on-line, even having a few items custom-made.

There were, after all, advantages to working in an R&D facility with unlimited government funding.

And all of their work had paid off. Now, returning from her second trip to Bad Wolf Bay, she was walking up her front steps, hand-in-hand with the final piece. Her heart was finally home.

* * *

The Doctor was distracted. After spending what felt like a lifetime without any Rose-related sensory input, he was now susceptible to mental wibblyness at the slightest touch. He wasn't sure if it was normal that his fingers tingled when he held her hand or if he'd always developed a pleasant, glowing warmth whenever she rested her head on his shoulder, but he was perfectly fine with both. He'd been in complete possession of his mental faculties all throughout their zeppelin ride over the North Sea, and very proud of himself for it.

Then they'd gotten in the car.

In that enclosed space, every fact he'd ever bothered to learn about human chemoreception imploded, and his entire existence revolved around Rose's hair. The Doctor hadn't intentionally memorized that particular fragrance, but he remembered, though fuzzily, the instant he realized he'd done so. New New York, their first off-world journey just after the Sycorax invasion. They'd landed the TARDIS on a rise overlooking the city, and had just walked down the control room's ramp and out the blue wooden doors of the TARDIS when Rose had asked him about the smell.

He hadn't noticed a smell, and was about to admit so when he looked down at the surrounding flora. The Doctor immediately bit back his confession of olfactory non-observance when he made the connection. He explained to Rose about the plant life, and they'd lain there on his coat (which he now _very_much needed to replace) for hours, reminiscing about past adventures and getting to know one another again.

He remembered grinning like an idiot when Rose used the word 'date' and still cursed himself privately for not responding with anything more substantial than their choice of food that day.

"Well?" Rose prompted him, nudging him with her elbow and breaking him out of his reverie. He was still in her doorway, not yet having stepped across the threshold. "Anything to say?"

"Your hair smells like apple-grass."

After spending so long wishing he could tell Rose everything that came to his mind, he now seemed unable to keep himself from doing so. He felt a growing concern that the condition would be irreversible.

Rose smiled and rested her forehead on his shoulder. "Anything else?" she asked, looking back up at him.

"I dunno, haven't smelled the rest of you, have I? Might get around to it sooner or later. Preferably sooner, inquiring minds want to know. Well, one mind. My mind."

The Doctor had expected Rose's house to look like an expanded version of her room back at the Powell Estate, all pink and pillows and laundry scattered about. The sight that greeted him held no such similarities, save the laundry.

"Also, your house looks _exactly_ like the interior of the TARDIS. Rose Tyler, you are _brilliant_." He stepped inside, trailing his hand along the spheres embedded in the walls, turning familiar corners, testing the metal grating of the walkways with a thumbnail and nodding approvingly at the sound. Rose walked behind him, loving the way his eyes sparkled when he noticed a new detail. "How on Earth did you manage this? Is that the engines? They left out that annoying ping from the sixth dimensional transit, that's an improvement. I'd ask for the tour, but that would be–" He opened a door to find a broom cupboard. He stared for a moment at the vacuum cleaner, glanced up at the rack of cleaning supplies, and turned back to Rose. "Now that's just rude."

"What, keepin' a clean house? Wish you'd been rude."

"This is supposed to be _my room_. I can't bunk with a hoover!" He glared at the appliance as though it had mortally offended him. "What about books, where will I keep my books?"

"The library's two doors down," Rose said pointing further up the hallway.

"And tea, where will I make tea?"

A smile played at the corners of Rose's lips. "Kitchen's two lefts and a right from here."

"And that lovely vase I got from Emperor Huang?"

"Using it as a bin in the downstairs toilet."

The Doctor made a mortified noise. Rose smirked in amusement.

"It's a replica and the color's a bit off, but I can't buy something that huge and not use it."

The Doctor covered the width of the hallway in one quick stride, throwing the door open opposite them. "Look there," he said, pointing, "your room? Exactly the same. Bed unmade, makeup on the vanity, clothes on the—hold on, are those Eventide robes from Coraxis IV? How did you find spider silk? Well done. No sign of any intrusive cleaning supplies here. Not a drop of bleach, not a feather duster, not a–" The Doctor paused, one eyebrow nearly disappearing into his fringe. His brain had immediately derailed, conjuring a fairly lavish image that included Rose, feather dusters, and not much else. "Sorry, what was I saying?"

Rose closed the gap between them, peeking into her room to make sure it wasn't in too much disarray before shutting the door and leaning against it. "You were talking about being _horribly_jealous, because you're a bloke and my room is bigger than yours."

"I never!"

"You were." She stuck her tongue out at him. He stared at it hungrily for a few seconds before clearing his throat and meeting her eyes again. "I knew if you ever came back," she said quietly, reaching out one arm to pull him towards her by the hem of his shirt and abruptly shifting the mood of the conversion, "that I wouldn't want you any further away than you had to be."

As the Doctor leaned down to trace the line of her neck with his lips, Rose put her mouth to his ear and whispered. "Stay with me. Please."

He never could deny her anything she wanted, and he wasn't about to start now. Breathing deeply, registering her every heartbeat, and tracing the contour of her spine with his fingertips, he overwhelmed his senses with this magnificent creature that had fought against all odds for him and won.

Once again, he opened her bedroom door.


	5. Epilogue

A/N: For those of you receiving update alerts for this long-finished fic, I have re-written almost the entire thing from start to finish. The dialogue remains largely unchanged, but I removed a lot of messy writing on my part. I hope you enjoy this nice, shiny, new version! (The section from chapter 4 that involved Rose remembering a trip to a supernova/black hole is now published as a separate piece, check my profile for more details.)

* * *

The next few days were full of running around. Not in their typical style—no life-or-death chases through dungeon corridors, no twenty-minute time limit to save the planet, no accidentally offending the royalty so badly that your name would be used as a curse for centuries—just normal, typical running around.

Nowhere in London sold the Doctor's trench coat in what he called "the proper fashion". After visiting what _seemed_ like a hundred department stores (but which the Doctor assured Rose had only been seventeen), they decided to wait until the TARDIS re-grew the wardrobe and hope for the best. If it didn't materialize, Pete offered to have one tailor-made as a wedding gift.

Ring shopping was also difficult. The Doctor insisted on seeing every stone and scanning them for minute flaws with his sonic screwdriver. After their third eviction, Rose found a small shop that sold antique jewelry. While browsing through some very expensive, very out-of-date earrings, the Doctor tiptoed up behind her. Bringing his arms in front of them both, he held out a small, burgundy box. "It's perfect," he said. "I checked."

Rose opened the box to find a petite gold band with an emerald-cut pink solitaire.

"Oh, it has a few tiny flaws," the Doctor continued, slipping it on her finger, and bringing her hand up to kiss it into place. "Microscopic, really. But it's been in this family for _two centuries_. There's a story behind it." She could hear the excited smile on his face.

Rose turned in his arms, crossing her wrists behind his neck and admiring the sparkle of the diamond over his shoulder. "Yeah?" she asked, grinning. "What is it?"

"No idea! Nor they," he said, inclining his head towards the family owners of the store, who seemed to be celebrating the sale. "Shall we find out? First voyage in a new TARDIS? Should make a hell of a honeymoon."

"Means I've only got six months to plan a wedding."

"With all you've accomplished? No problem. 'Rose Tyler: Defender of the Earth and Urgent-Rush Wedding Planner'. Mind you, we might need some work on that name."

"This from 'The Oncoming Storm'?" Rose teased, taking the Doctor's hand, enjoying the tactile sensation of the gold band against their entwined fingers.

"Oi, now! That wasn't by choice."

"No, but it does describe your snoring."

They continued to banter as they left the shop, discussing the plans and schemes of their bright future together.


End file.
